for the new copies, each confiscating one for his or
her own room, Mr. and Mrs. Walford have ever been
in touch with each individual member of their family.
The children have never been put aside for her work,
and they are constantly with their mother. They
have all inherited her talent for drawing, and many
of them bid fair to be no mean proficients in the art.
On the following morning your hostess announces that she has "given herself a holiday" and she proposes to take you out for a turn. The season is late and, though within but & very few weeks of Christmas, the sun is shining brightly over the grounds and the air is pleasantly warm. What was once said of a famous lawn at Oxford may well be applied to Cranbrooke Hall. A stranger inquired of a solemn old gardener what was done to keep it so fine and smooth ? "Well, sir," was the reply, with the utmost gravity and good faith, "first we sows the seed, and then we rolls it and we mows it for three hundred years." Skating will soon be largely indulged in on the glittering lake, and many merry moonlight parties are looked forward to during the coming severe weather, which is predicted by the great holly trees covered with red berries. After a stroll round the pleasant demesne, and a peep into the vineries, in which is the old black Hamburg vine, sister of the famous one at Hampton Court, you return through the billiard-room into the Camellia house, which, a little later on will be a mass of bloom, sometimes as many as two thousand being in flower at a time, in every variety of colour.
The billiard table is decorated at the sides with
